Clean Energy Counsel Represents Carbon-to-Chemicals Pioneer Dioxycle in Landmark Multi-Year Offtake Agreement with L'Oréal

Firm Advises Cleantech Innovator on Groundbreaking Take-or-Pay Supply Agreement for Low-Carbon Intensity HDPE, Advancing the Circular Economy in Chemical Manufacturing

Clean Energy Counsel is pleased to announce that it served as legal counsel to Dioxycle, a cleantech company at the forefront of carbon capture utilization, in connection with a multi-year offtake agreement with global beauty leader L’Oréal S.A. This transaction represents a significant milestone in the commercialization of Dioxycle’s carbon electrolysis technology and the advancement of circular economy principles within the chemical manufacturing and consumer products industries.

Transaction Overview

The Offtake Agreement is a long-term take-or-pay arrangement, under which L’Oréal has committed to purchase low-carbon intensity high-density polyethylene (HDPE) produced by Dioxycle utilizing CO2 emissions. The HDPE procured under the Offtake Agreement will be incorporated into product packaging across various L’Oréal product lines, directly substituting conventional fossil-fuel-derived plastics with a significantly lower carbon intensity alternative.

The Offtake Agreement directly supports L’Oréal’s publicly stated “L’Oréal for the Future” sustainability targets, which include reducing virgin plastic use in product packaging by 50% and sourcing at least 50% of materials from recycled or biobased sources by 2030.

Founded in 2021, Dioxycle is a  cleantech startup headquartered in Paris, with operations in France and California, that has developed a proprietary “carbon electrolyzer” technology capable of producing sustainable ethylene, and other commodity chemicals, from recycled carbon dioxide emissions, water, and renewable electricity.

Dioxycle’s approach directly addresses this carbon-intensive production process by retrofitting existing industrial plants and utilizing captured CO₂ as a feedstock, transforming an industrial waste product into a valuable chemical precursor. The resulting ethylene—and derivative products such as HDPE—carries a substantially lower carbon intensity than conventionally produced counterparts, positioning Dioxycle as a key enabler of the circular carbon-based chemical industry.

Clean Energy Counsel provided comprehensive legal representation to Dioxycle across all aspects of the negotiations with L’Oreal. The engagement was led by Managing Partner, Marlena Schultz, whose practice includes representing cleantech companies as they navigate the complex pathways of negotiating, financing, developing and scaling-up first of a kind technologies.

“This transaction exemplifies the kind of innovative, cross-border clean energy deals that are reshaping global supply chains. Representing Dioxycle as it brings its breakthrough carbon electrolysis technology to commercial scale with a world-class consumer goods partner is exactly the kind of work that defines our practice. The take-or-pay structure of this Offtake Agreement provides Dioxycle with the commercial certainty it needs to scale, while delivering a meaningful decarbonization pathway for L’Oréal’s product packaging portfolio.”

— Marlena Schultz, Lead Partner, Clean Energy Counsel